


our princess (is in another castle)

by saiditallbefore



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Original Trilogy Era, Pre-Relationship, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 23:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14460318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/pseuds/saiditallbefore
Summary: “I’m looking for Princess Leia.”“She’s been captured,” Jyn explained, already tired of this.  “But more importantly, I’m going to have to commandeer your ship.”Or, Amilyn is looking for Leia, Jyn is looking for the plans for the Death Star (again), and neither of them has any idea what they’re doing.





	our princess (is in another castle)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



Jyn woke in unfamiliar quarters, a med-droid standing over her. She glanced around, taking stock. It wasn’t Imperial, at least— Imperial regulations would never allow for dirt to accumulate in the corners like it had here.

She ripped the tubes and wires monitoring her out of her arms and stood, heedless of the med-droid’s protests. Her clothes were missing, of course, as was her blaster. But she wasn’t going to wait around for whoever had captured her to come back.

Jyn took a breath, steeled herself for whatever might be waiting in the corridor, and pressed the button to open the door. 

After all of that, it was _almost_ disappointing to be faced with an empty corridor. She chose a direction at random and went to the left, following the hallway until it terminated at an open doorway. Jyn pressed herself as closely to the wall as she could, and tried to make out voices, but there was nothing. Slowly, cautiously, she peered through the doorway, only to see a collection of decommissioned equipment, manned by a motley handful of humans and non-humans alike.

“The Rebel Alliance,” she breathed.

* * *

Amilyn was enroute from Gatalenta to Coruscant when Alderaan was destroyed.

She didn’t find out about it until the next day, when an announcement over the holonet that Alderaan had been destroyed for “harboring Rebel forces”. She’d wanted to retreat to her room, then, and hide from the Empire for the rest of her life. 

But she couldn’t. Alderaan was gone. The millions of sentient beings that had lived there were dead. Leia, who should have been joining Amilyn that day in the Senate, was probably dead. 

And the only people who were interested in stopping the Empire from doing it again were in the Rebel Alliance.

Amilyn didn’t find out that Leia had survived until a week later, when a warrant for the princess’s arrest was officially issued. But by then, Amilyn was already on a ship to Oulia 3 to meet with a contact in the Rebellion.

* * *

After everything she’d done, after she’d almost died and the rest of her crew still _might_ die— the Rebels has managed to lose the kriffing Death Star plans. 

Well, it wasn’t entirely their fault— Vader had shown up and captured the princess and turned everything to shit. But the fact remained: the only person who knew the whereabouts of those plans was Vader’s prisoner. On the Death Star.

That they no longer had the plans for.

“You lot are hopeless,” Jyn told the Rebel who’d explained all of this to her, a tall, amphibious being named Thess Lazup. “Now, are you going to give me my clothes, or do I have to go looking for them?”

“Pardon?” Lazup blinked.

“My clothes.” Jyn gestured down at the thin robe she was wearing. “I can’t go rescuing your princess and getting those damned plans back without clothes, can I? Oh, and I’m going to need a ship—”

As if luck were with her, the sound of a ship landing outside echoed throughout the tiny base. Moments later, a tall, lanky, pink-haired young woman strode in. In unison, the the Rebels all raised their blasters at her.

“Could someone get me a blaster?” Jyn complained.

“Commander Brilay sent me here,” the pink-haired woman said. “I’m looking for Princess Leia.”

Lazup faltered, and swallowed nervously. “That’s not possible, miss.”

“Senator,” the woman corrected. “Senator Amilyn Holdo of Gatalenta.” She paused, apparently thinking. “At the least— can you pass on a message?”

Thess Lazup looked even more nervous— quite the feat for a being who seemed to have been born nervous. “That’s not— I can’t—”

“She’s been captured,” Jyn explained, already tired of this. “But more importantly, I’m going to have to commandeer your ship.”

* * *

Amilyn did not let the strange Rebel woman commandeer her ship. But as she seemed to know something about where Leia was, and she was clearly more comfortable with a blaster than Amilyn herself— who had only ever used one on a target— so Amilyn didn’t mind that she’d invited herself along.

The other woman— one “Jyn Erso”— followed Amilyn into her ship and looked around appraisingly.

“Not bad,” she said. “How many guns?”

“It doesn’t have any.” Amilyn sat down in the captain’s chair. “It’s an embassy ship, for missions of peace and diplomacy.”

Jyn snorted. “Sure. _Peacekeeping_ missions.” Still, she strapped herself into the co-captain’s seat, saying, “Well, I’ve survived worse odds this week.”

Amilyn didn’t say anything. She’d “liberated” the ship from the the Gatalentan embassy on Coruscant— it had been the only way she could think of to get a ship at such short notice. It wouldn’t raise any questions; when the security at the embassy saw her on the footage, they would probably just notify her family. And _they_ would sigh and prepare a lecture about how one can’t just go haring off without telling anyone to complete astrological charts for Outer Rim planets.

Perhaps a different sort of ship would have been better for breaking into the Death Star and stealing a prisoner. But then again, unless she’d been able to abscond with a Super Star Destroyer, she would have been just as vulnerable.

Amilyn had a ship, and she had an ally. This wasn’t the time or place for a full meditation, but as she moved into hyperspace she took a deep breath in, and then out, freeing herself of the what-ifs— whatever she had now would have to be enough.

Then she turned her attention to the woman accompanying her. “How did you meet Leia?” Amilyn asked.

“I haven’t,” Jyn said. “I transmitted the plans for the Death Star, and she received them.” She stared at the viewscreen, but didn’t seem to see anything. “And now they’re in the Empire’s hands again.”

“Leia won’t hand over the plans,” Amilyn said softly. “She already hated the Empire before, and now they’ve destroyed her home. She’d rather die than help them.”

Jyn shrugged. “With the Empire, death is the merciful option.”

* * *

Maybe Jyn was being unkind. But if Senator Holdo was going to embark on a suicide mission, she deserved to know the odds.

Still, Holdo didn’t seem to find Jyn’s pessimism off-putting. Though, really, no one with hair that color had any right to find anyone else off-putting.

After a short while of blessed silence, Holdo turned to Jyn again and began speaking in her strangely even tone as though there had been no pause at all. “Leia and I were in a pathfinding class together, when we first became apprentice senators. She’s my closest friend.” 

Jyn fought to think of something to say. She’d never been very good at social niceties or small talk— a result of growing up isolated and on the run.

Holdo didn’t seem to mind, though. She just continued on, telling stories about pathfinding on any number of planets— which at least reassured Jyn that the other woman had _some_ survival skills, even if they had been taught to her in a class full of privileged kids. Then, with no warning, the stories shifted to be about the Senate and some of the politics there.

“Why do you even bother?” Jyn asked. “The Emperor doesn’t listen to you. The Senate is just there to make the planets feel like they still have some say in their own governance.” It was a version of a lecture she’d heard from Saw often enough.

Holdo didn’t seem offended, though. She tilted her head and seemed to truly consider Jyn’s words. “The Senate makes a number of decisions for the Empire, regarding taxation, the allocation of government spending, and the placement of new government facilities.”

“Your decisions could be overruled by Imperial officials at any time,” Jyn pointed out.

“Yes,” Holdo acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth attempting.”

Jyn nodded— she’d never been fond of losing fights, but she was on her second suicide mission of the week. She wasn’t _entirely_ averse to doing things just for ideology.

“Besides,” Holdo added. “The presence of the Senate reminds people that the Empire didn’t always control the galaxy. We used to be a Republic.”

“What if people just don’t care?” Jyn asked. “Not everyone does, you know. Republic, Empire— most people are just trying to survive.”

Holdo gave her a long, penetrating look. “You don’t really believe that, Jyn Erso. If you did, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get the Death Star plans back.”

* * *

Amilyn hadn’t seen the Death Star before, but as her ship dropped out of hyperspace, there was no mistaking the ominous space station in the distance for anything else.

The fleet of TIE fighters swarming out of it, chasing a freighter. The freighter was shooting back— _it_ clearly wasn’t a peacekeeping vessel— but it could be overwhelmed at any minute.

Since anyone the Empire hated that much was probably a friend— or at least a potential ally— Amilyn switched to manual controls and flew towards the TIEs.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” Jyn demanded. “We don’t have guns, remember?”

Amilyn didn’t answer. The TIE pilots had spotted them now, and she was fighting to stay out of the range of their guns.

This was the closest to death she’d ever been. It was a bit exhilerating. 

At long last, the fighter swooped in behind them and took out the last of the TIEs. Jyn, who’d been watching the viewscreen with a clenched jaw and fists, like she longed to be doing something, relaxed infinitesimally.

Then the comm beeped. Amilyn and Jyn looked at each other.

“It’s probably the freighter,” Amilyn said.

“Probably,” Jyn agreed.

Neither of them reached for the comm until it beeped a second time. 

Amilyn pressed the comm button. “This is Senator Amilyn Holdo on the Gatalentan vessel _Amity_. We are an unarmed diplomatic vessel.” She hoped that they didn’t think to ask what sort of diplomatic business she had in the region.

“Amilyn?” a familiar voice exclaimed over the comm.

(In the background, someone else said “You’re _unarmed_?” but Amilyn ignored him.)

“Leia!” Amilyn grinned. “I’ve been looking for you!”

Jyn wrested the comm from Amilyn’s hand then, and said, “Princess Leia, this is Jyn Erso. Are the Death Star plans still safe?”

“I have the plans with me,” Leia said. “The Empire has not seen them.”

Jyn breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

“We’ll rendezvous with you on Yavin IV,” Leia said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on tumblr!](http://saiditallbefore.tumblr.com/post/177347181953/our-princess-is-in-another-castle)


End file.
